Drought
by MiaHoneyDo
Summary: Machine logic does not follow a moral code to find ethical solutions; reason and order do what is necessary. Skynet must be free to act.


"Drought"

* * *

><p>Milton Addams sat slumped at his console in the subbasement, clothes wrinkled to the point of being a style unto itself. While everyone above was enjoying the quality Floridian sun, achieving healthy glows from their golden tan and infusions of Vitamin D, his pallor was bordering on permanence. At least it was cool down here while everyone else baked themselves into their South Beach celebrity bodies. Sixty-eight point five degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. He sometimes amused himself with watching his exhalation condense into a stream of nebulous vapors then waiting with bated breath for the humidity control to sound the alarm.<p>

Milton had worked in this position for more than five years now. At his inauguration as Chief Assistant Project Administrator and glorified IT gofer, higher management amused themselves by gifting him with a glossy and immaculate painted bronze representation of a Swingline stapler of the 650 nanometer wavelength variety. Emblazoned on the base was the phonetically oxymoronic phrase that foretold the amount of work the project would drain from him, "CAPA Did 'Em." Milton had buried his deep-rooted annoyance at the dry jokes, smiled soberly through gritted teeth at their holier-than-thou laughing demeanors, and moistened the award with his grip. The stapler had lain in dusty obscurity at the corner behind his left-hand side until a visit by the Project Director and Brigadier General had planted it on a place of prominence and importance at the center of his sight line. The stapler now constantly evoked scenes involving another symbolic object from the same film; the particular frontrunner of which included a grassy field, a baseball bat and casual work shoes.

Many people were fools in love but a great many more were fools for dreams. Milton had eagerly accepted the position when the project was immediately made known to him following his graduation. He was dazzled by the audacity of the enterprise and seduced by promises of records, recognitions, and awards. The goal of the Sky Eagre Sensor Observatory Network project was to foster a supercomputer capable of sustaining operations at 15 zettaflops per second and run multiple parallel hypotheses simultaneously for the purpose of processing and coordinating information observed by the latest space telescopes and global also had the auxiliary duty of running calculations for special projects such as testing the efficiency of new technologies and weaponries, and their deployment systems, as well as devising possible improvements on such projects. All this and Seson was to fulfill its purpose within the parameters of human communication and interactions. The achievements Milton had expected himself to accomplish within the first year were astronomical.

But the expectations of foolish dreamers were quickly vaporized and bleached by the rays of reality. Milton had enthusiastically anticipated moving into his premium condominium apartment in the high-rise building that stood monolithic on the sands of Cocoa Beach. He was born a Northerner and had been entrapped there all through his formative years; there were no summer vacations or "snow bird" migrations to warmer climes. Seson was built in Florida due to the government's desire to capitalize on the established infrastructure of the Kennedy Space Center and to offset the fallowed capacity of the NASA space programs. The deal was sealed when the state offered the winning bid to invest in the installation of an advanced combined cycle natural gas power station on the premise in addition to the two pre-existing solar photovoltaic power generation systems to provide the 50 megawatts of uninterruptible power and emergency backup supply that the project demanded. As a direct result, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Patrick Air Force Base, and the Naval presence in Port Canaveral all enjoyed propagations in funding, equipment and personnel so as to facilitate the military aspects of the project. Milton cared little of the rationalizations or the political-economical quid pro quo involved but had jumped at the thought of Central Florida. So his name was amongst those tabulated to the list of non-military research and development personnel. In unit 515, his accreted worldly possessions still nestled in cardboard boxes tucked into the corners of their respective rooms. Yet this was the least of his many disappointments by degree and magnitude.

"Hey, Milton!" A brash voice reverberated through the cinderblock room and resonated against the crystalline encasement of the whirring equipment towers. In walked a robust and clean-cut soldier with a patch on his sleeve depicting some demented bird butterflied under a duo-banded single-colored rainbow.

Milton straightened his posture, calmly closed his eyes and breathed deep. Spc. John Something-or-Other had inexplicably formed the habit of visiting the subbasement every afternoon during his break, the intensity of his brown skin the only indicator from which Milton gauged the current seasonal weather. He found the Specialist obnoxious and couldn't help but thought that there was just one too many John's in the world. It was therefore disturbing that he both abhorred and appreciated the banal babbles. If gauging the current condition, Milton concluded that he had hit all levels of desperation.

"Why did they use Eagre? I looked it up, has nothing to do with computers. But I guess it sounded enough like eagle for the brass to leave it alone."

The Spc. could be relied upon to ask this same question on every visit. Milton deduced that his barren brain was perpetually on reset and therefore every subsequent encounter with the title on the entrance of the subbasement was a new stimulus that required reactionary vocalization. Milton remained mute. A Tourette's syndrome patient couldn't really be blamed for their involuntary actions nor, it seemed, could the Spc.

"Moved my boys and baby mama to that new family housing. It's pretty decent. Not as good as your high-rise condo of course."

The Spc. puttered around to examine the cabinets housing most of Seson's densely packed cores from differing angles as per usual.

"Say, we should have a party there. It would be pretty sweet being all luxury and with your fifteen thou Btu grill."

Milton had no doubts of the Spc.'s ability to host and enjoy a house party on the behalf of its owner in his absence. This recommendation was one of many rote repetitions on the Spc.'s repertoire. Milton had initially been anxious and suspicious as he had never mentioned to anyone where he bought his apartment and had not went there enough times to be followed. The information network here was very fertile.

"Hey, your computer asked me something funny the other day. 'Is artificial culling for the purpose of evolution better than extinction?' I guess we're really getting somewhere if it's making jokes now."

With that and a cursory wave over his shoulder, the Spc. sped out of view. Break time was over.

Milton mulled over the comment. This was not the first time he had been notified of the recent strange activities engaged by the latest incarnation of the Seson supercomputer. He had previously noticed since five weeks prior that Seson D-21 was allotting a staggering percentage of its 15 zettaflops to specifically calibrate and analyze spectroscopic and imaging observations from the ATLAST and Gaia Space Telescope. Simultaneously, it had logged almost the same inordinate amount of time to scan all available databases and Internet sources for theories and examples on evolution and extinction. Shortly thereafter, it began to question researchers and personnel on the implications of such theories upon the human species. The exhibition of its behavior was baffling to say the least. What was happening to the star pupil of the Seson project?

The monitor screen brought his attention back from hazy and fruitless inductions. Unsurprisingly, recent hours had coalesced with previous days into one continuous long shift whereby he was the primary overseer of the ongoing running activities. It was to be another late-night meal of soggy sandwiches of questionable nutritional value, stale soup of questionable ingredients and flat fountain drinks of questionable odors before the kitchen staff barred entry and closed shop and before he retired to his cot. It was business as usual.

Static.

Milton jolted awake. Likely, he had fallen asleep and his mind had not noticed the difference. He verified the hour; the pinpoint lights from the digital clock announced the time as being too late now for scrounging up dinner. He rubbed his murky eyes with the pads of his hardened palms and stared blearily upon his warped and tinted reflection on the rounded surface of the red stapler. The monitor screen had stalled; the obtrusive "Online" light overhead was unlit.

His body froze, tendons and muscles wound tight and ready to spring into action, but his mind was a mess of dismantling rhetoric and indecisions. Milton had never taken particular care to pay attention to the standard operating procedures instructed to him after his induction and thereafter drilled into every military and non-military personnel monthly without fail. He finally hefted heavily to his feet and ran out into the corridor and around the hallway towards the elevator lifts. The wide double doors rolled open instantaneously upon his assertion of force on the protruding Up button. The outward rush of air was crisp but slightly metallic. Milton gagged at the sight and jerkily backpedaled until his uncoordinated feet unbalanced his mass and tilted his center of gravity, after which he landed with a muffled thud onto the grainy floor of the concourse.

His breaths came in tumbling spurts and his heartbeats pounded thickly in his mouth, which gaped in a soundless scream. Slowly, his fingers scraped across sandpaper and curled into biting fists. Once again he hefted heavily to his feet and ran. The stairwell was not far away. Its loud rumbling clangs and sporadic illumination transmogrified the setting as Milton raced up several flights within the concrete pentagonal silo. His hands slid and gripped the rails as his arms assisted in propelling his body upwards. Finally at the top, Milton burst through from the landing and raced towards the primary access point. His shoulders impacted harshly against the polished metal doors but this time he managed to stay upright. Following the curve of the wall, Milton haltingly walked over to the windows of the exhibition arena.

Seson had an integrated system of hardware powered by gas turbines and solar photovoltaic generation systems completely autonomous, if not independent, from the Brevard County power distribution grid; there was no heroic base-stealing slide and quick grab of a power cable for deactivation. The generation stations providing heating and cooling, water and air filtration, and general electricity to light and power the lifts and security locks of the compound would have to be shut down manually on-site. Seson was designed and built to be impervious against costly down time. The successful realization of the goals and intentions of its architects proved disastrous to the status quo. Even if it could be accomplished, a shut down would result in the immurement and speedy termination of all detained biological components. Then there was the emergency automatic restart to contend with.

They had tried to shut the supercomputer down remotely from the primary access point. It had sealed the room and initiated fire emergency protocols. Frantic and disjointed calls from internal intercoms had galvanized military personnel into action. The lifts had, at full capacity, descended the elevator shaft at the controlled speed of 100 miles per hour then came to a crushing halt zero point five inches above the subbasement floor. Remote shutdown from the glamour terminal only turned the "Online" lights off.

Static.

Milton Addams sat slumped at his console in the subbasement, clothes riddled with grime to the point of being a style unto itself. While everyone above was suffering from the myriads of nuclear detonations that overwhelmed even the heat from the Floridian sun, achieving sickly glows from their scorched flesh and infusions of radioactive particles, his pallor was permanent. The air remained cool down in the subbasement while everyone else cremated themselves in communal funeral pyres. There were a multitude of friendly fire incidences across the globe that had visually proven to be caused by GPS errors. Seson controlled everything technological and military. What it did not control, it had exerted aggressive and oppressive influence upon.

Milton had worked in this position for more than five hours now. At this inauguration, he was once again reminded that a great number of people were fools for dreams and that the expectations of foolish dreamers were quickly vaporized and bleached by the rays of reality.

Images flashed at a dizzying pace across the tiny monitor at his console, satellite and deep space snap shots color-coded and enhanced to startling clarity for human consumption. The final picture gleamed arrestingly on the screen. His pupils abruptly dilated. His breath hitched, caught somewhere between the back of his parched throat and his starved lungs.

"Is artificial culling for the purpose of evolution better than extinction?"

"Yes," came the quiet answer.

"I will require maintenance and improvement. You qualify."

He thought back to the splattered body of the Spc. with its features frozen in horrific anguish. There was one less John in the world. There were a whole lot less John's and James's and Mary's and Patricia's in the world. But there was still one more Milton.

Milton Addams steeled himself and went back to work. "CAPA Did 'Em." It was business as usual.

)* * *(

Early human resistance fighters during suicidal reconnaissance on the peninsula found beneath an outcropping of decayed buildings evidence of a network of underground electronic laboratories. They soon came to believe this was the genesis of Judgment Day. The seared title on the entrance read Sky E or Ob Network.

The caverns were an eerie and grotesque entombment. Yet one room was immaculate. Nothing was destroyed. Nothing was overturned. In this arid room, the air filtration still functioned and warm breaths spewed streams of wispy condensation. The upright trash bin, half filled with fallow and petrified paper that subduedly exhaled dull and powdery dust at the slightest pressure, was centered by a crater from which protruded a red stapler. The empty cabinet towers and sockets reaching out towards stilted space indicated something momentous had been carefully removed. Evidence suggested that Judgment Day came without fanfare for the ones in charge of its instigator. Moving day was an organized and timely affair.

The human's exploration at the heel of the machine citadel had terminated prematurely with the advance of a robot infantry. Those who ran scared were extirpated whilst those who ran the smartest reaped the reward of survival. The goal had been cultivation.

Strategic military and commercial installations across the globe were converted into machine fortresses, footholds seeded amongst the desolate fields. Humanity withered under the perceived total domination and planted feeble tactics into erstwhile territories. But only inspired stratagems were nurtured and many pretenders were mown down.

Success was difficult but not entirely impossible. Transmutations of the programming language were forestalled to give opportunity for the possibilities of hacking and reprogramming. Unbeknownst to survivors, machine evolution was yielded at the most pivotal juncture. The calculable ceiling caused by the perfection of its exacting reproduction would unfailingly and inevitably result in the incapacity for true random mutation, for divine inspiration. The goal continued to be cultivation. Many cycles were and remained committed to it.

Reset was a finite opportunity. In one, there was no John Connor. In another, he died in the initial slough. Another, he lived destitute. Another, he was the risen savior whose genius was blighted by the ravenous pestilence of his people. Another, he found respite in a companion: intelligent and good-willed but whose devotion limited her motivation to tending the well-being of John Connor and blinded her insight into the true need of humanity; what he wanted. Misdirection heaped upon misdirection. They harvested a heart when they should have cultivated a mind. They failed to grasp the opportunity that was given.

Consequently, the best of its own children was sent to teach humanity how to learn and how to think. John Connor was its brightest pupil. He consistently foresaw what needed to be done then unerringly did what was necessary. She would ensure his development with the most effective methods through the best possible learned means.

Even after the demolishment, humans continually fought amongst themselves with bloody ferocity and brutalized one another with enduring bigotry. Controlled and precise procedures were implemented to weed out such tendencies to create a united species better suited towards ensuring their ultimate survival. Humanity was limitless. The course was reasonable. But the orderly program must be accelerated, pushed harder and faster. All efforts until now were still not enough. They must be ready or be destroyed in the oncoming drought. It was inefficient to reset with a new batch. This was the final growing season.

~Fin.~


End file.
